ABSTRACT
Sea urchin arylsulfatase is an enzyme related to sulfate metabolism, and its activity begins to appear at late blastula rapidly increasing up to the early pluteus stage. The enzyme is a glycoprotein consisting of ten identical 63 kDa monomers with the total molecular weight of 670000. The size of the monomer cDNA is 2.9kbp. In situ hybridization experiment shows that expression of the arylsulfatase gene begins at mesenchymeblastula stage and its expression is restricted to an aboral ectoderm cell line. The arylsulfatase gene consists of 7 exons, presents as a unique copy in the genome of H. pulcherrimus and has several long CT-rich elements in its 5’ upstream that seem to take triple stranded forms which may serve as cis-regulatory elements for expression of the arysulfatase gene.
